from the not-good-enough dept

Recently, we discussed an odd post by the American division of Atlus, the company behind the recently released game Persona 5. The post basically outlined restrictions on streaming the game in the popular "let's play" format. Those restrictions were pretty clearly geared towards keeping spoilers for the game's stories off of the internet, with indications that discussing or streaming game content that occur after an in-game date was verbotten. The post was also couched in threats for DMCA notices, which is odd because spoilers aren't what copyright law was designed to combat. The public backlash was fairly uniform, with Atlus coming out not looking particularly good as a result.

On Tuesday Atlus announced that they will allow players to stream or post videos from up until the in-game date of November 19, just before the story's final act. The post wrote it was in response to "numerous reactive news articles," opinion videos and "many emails" asking them to loosen the restrictions.

"We also want to apologize to those of you who saw the previous guidelines as threatening," Atlus wrote. "It was never our intention to threaten people with copyright strikes, but we clearly chose the wrong tone for how to communicate this."

That last bit is more than laughable. Here is the original text that from the first set of restrictions that caused concern among streamers that they would be hit with copyright strikes.

This being a Japanese title with a single-playthrough story means our masters in Japan are very wary about it. Sharing is currently blocked through the native PS4 UI. However, if you do plan on streaming, video guidelines above apply except length. If you decide to stream past 7/7 (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND NOT DOING THIS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED), you do so at the risk of being issued a content ID claim or worse, a channel strike/account suspension.

That seems pretty clearly to be a threat of copyright or DMCA notices if the rules aren't followed. As for the loosening of the restrictions on streaming, Atlus essentially just pushed back the in-game checkpoint in the rules. Instead of prohibitions on streaming content beginning at the in-game date of 7/7, it now begins at 11/19. And if that following sentence doesn't read as purely absurd to you, then you need some help getting your mind calibrated.

There is value in having fans stream games in let's play videos. This has been demonstrated repeatedly. Either Atlus buys into that or it doesn't. Straddling the line in the name of saving fans from spoilers, even after it has moved that line, isn't good enough. Restrict streaming. Or don't. Pick a lane, in other words, rather than trying to build guidelines based on in-game dates. That simply makes no sense.

from the uh,-okay? dept

This seems like something we'll need to keep repeating: revealing entertainment spoilersis not copyright infringement. What ought to be common sense is apparently not so for all kinds of content owners in the entertainment space. As such, DMCA notices or threats for DMCA notices have been used to combat spoiler releases in all kinds of forms, from movie predictions, to television show predictions, to video game footage that reveals spoilers. Some of these instances involve actual footage of the copyrighted material while some don't, but the core of the matter is that if you're talking copyright infringement because of spoilers, you're doing copyright wrong.

The latest version of this comes from Atlus, developers of Persona 5. The American division of Atlus put out a notice on its website, in which it starts off with bubbling excitement over the release of the game, but then spills into a lecture on what gamers can stream and what they cannot.

Ok, now let’s talk Persona 5 streaming and videos. Simply put, we don’t want the experience to be spoiled for people who haven’t played the game. Our fans have waited years for the game to come out and we really want to make sure they can experience it fully as a totally new adventure. Please read our video/streaming guidelines below:

Please, PLEASE do not post any specific plot points or story spoilers, and only talk about the game in broad strokes. (Good example: “The game deals with dark themes right off the bat, with a lecherous teacher and other corrupted individuals.” Bad example: “Players immediately run into trouble with the pervy teacher *spoiler*, whose actions go so far as to cause *spoiler*.”)

You’re more than welcome to talk/show Confidants, the new combat, the Velvet Room, the dungeons, etc. Just please keep in mind that as a singular story playthrough, viewers are *highly* wary of spoilers!

"7/7" refers to a date within the game itself, which means that players of this game who want to stream their playthroughs will apparently have to check their fictitious calendars to make sure they haven't reached the streaming event horizon. That in itself ought to strike you as ridiculous on its face, but reading through the subsequent guidelines about what should be streamed and what shouldn't literally had me chuckling. For example:

No major story spoilers, and I’ll leave that up to your good judgment. If you need some guidelines, avoid showing/spoiling the ending segments of the first three palaces. While you can show initial interactions with Yusuke, avoid his awakening scene, and that whole deal about THE painting. Also, don’t post anything about a certain student investigator.

This obviously takes live streaming out of the equation. How is one to know what in the sweet hell any of this refers to unless they've already played the game? And dictating commentary topics, as opposed to footage, doesn't carry any weight having to do with copyright infringement. Streamers can discuss whatever they want. And if Atlus allows streaming of its game, it's not clear to me that the DMCA or copyright law allows them to dictate the segmentation of what's allowed for streaming and what isn't.

But the stranger part is the American Atlus division's sheepish reason for putting these restrictions out there in the first place. I can't quite tell if some of this is supposed to be taken tongue in cheek or not, but it comes off sounding rather ominous.

This being a Japanese title with a single-playthrough story means our masters in Japan are very wary about it. Sharing is currently blocked through the native PS4 UI. However, if you do plan on streaming, video guidelines above apply except length. If you decide to stream past 7/7 (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND NOT DOING THIS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED), you do so at the risk of being issued a content ID claim or worse, a channel strike/account suspension.

Japanese masters? That just sounds creepy. Beyond that, threatening channel suspension with spoilers being the differentiating point between when that threat applies or not doesn't make any sense. I get that spoilers can be annoying for some, but that doesn't fall under the purview of copyright law. Either let people stream or don't.